


Divide By Two

by dedicatedfollower467



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Magical Twin Powers, Post - Deathly Hallows, Sad, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedicatedfollower467/pseuds/dedicatedfollower467
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George reflects on his magical ability to switch bodies with Fred, and what that will mean now that Fred is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divide By Two

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Inspired by [ this post ](http://amazonpoodle.tumblr.com/post/81520248612/what-if-the-reason-nobody-can-tell-fred-and-george)

The first night after Fred died, George lay awake all night wondering whether he was really George.

Switching bodies as kids had started out weird and scary, but eventually became commonplace. He and his twin had always been different people, but from a very young age it had been so easy to accidentally plant his brain in the other body. Folks couldn’t tell them apart because there was nothing to tell apart – sometimes it was George who had the extra mole, and sometimes Fred.

It had been so useful to switch in the middle of tests, to let the twin who knew an answer write it down for both of them. Playing Quidditch, they’d had the advantage of being able to use each twin’s strength at any time it was necessary (Fred had always had better aim, but George knew the strategy better). How many switches had they gotten away with over the years?

He wondered, lying awake that night, whether the boy child their mother had named “Fred” might have been him. Because there were certainly some days when George felt less like a George and more like a Fred. His name hadn’t been an integral part of his identity for a long time. When he even ended up calling himself the wrong thing because he was in the wrong body, it was hard to get particularly attached to a name.

He looked to the space beside him, the space where, in a better world, his twin would be curled up next to him. After a battle like that, George had no doubts that the both of them would have needed comfort, and that they would have curled in around each other, allowing the other’s touch to ground them.

Instead George lay alone in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, for all that he was surrounded by the exhausted, quietly grieving survivors. Everybody had lost someone, but none of them had lost their twin, the other half of their identity. George felt irrationally that he had lost something more than any of the rest of them, especially his family.

After all, he and his twin had been interchangeable. His family had always tried hard (bless his mother’s poor, overtaxed brain) but the two of them had, essentially, been turned into one person by the people they loved the most.

And with that realization came the sudden knowledge that, from now on, they would expect _him_ to be both himself and his twin, at the same time.

The thought of trying to be Fred for everyone all alone terrified him, and he curled around where his twin should have been, right by his side.

A scream tore through his throat when he _felt_ his body trying to switch.

Before there had always been that magical moment of transformation, that point of weightlessness while his mind switched places with Fred’s. Now he could feel that gravity-defying sensation but there was no place to go – his mind was caught suspended. There was no body to switch with, no consciousness to control the body he was leaving behind.

He didn’t know how long he’d been trapped like that, with his mind straining for a presence that no longer existed, before he finally made it back into the one body he had left. Still screaming he sat bolt upright, clenching the sheets.

Bill, next to him, sat up almost as fast as he did, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Whoa, George,” he said. “Take it easy. What’s wrong?”

“It’s like,” he gasped, still trying to get his breathing under control. “It’s like I’ve lost a limb. He’s not there, but I keep thinking he will be.”

For all that Bill had figured out how to tell the difference between the two of their minds, George didn’t think Bill had ever worked out that they actually switched bodies.

“I know,” said Bill. George felt a wave of anger. Bill _didn’t_ know, and he never could.

“It’ll be okay,” said Bill, and George wanted to punch him, to tell him his ridiculous platitudes wouldn’t help when half his _soul_ was missing.

“Come here,” said Bill, and George buried his face in his brother’s shirt and cried like a baby.

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, I am sorry that this isn't 'Every War is Both Won and Lost' or one of my other unfinished WIPs.


End file.
